Northwest Community earns accreditation for cancer program

The Commission on Cancer, a quality program of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) granted three-year accreditation with commendation to the cancer program at Northwest Community Healthcare.

To earn voluntary CoC accreditation, a cancer program must meet or exceed the CoC quality care standards, be evaluated every three years through a survey process and maintain levels of excellence in the delivery of comprehensive patient-centered care. Three-year accreditation with commendation is only awarded to a facility that exceeds standard requirements at the time of its triennial survey.

"We are very proud of the team approach that patients receive when cared for at Northwest Community Healthcare by physicians, nurses and other clinical personnel," said Dr. Stephen Nigh, radiation oncology, medical director of cancer services at NCH. "It is nice to be recognized by the American College of Surgeons for the outstanding work that goes on every day here at NCH."

Because it is a CoC-accredited cancer center, Northwest Community Healthcare takes a multidisciplinary approach to treating cancer as a complex group of diseases that requires consultation among surgeons, medical and radiation oncologists, diagnostic radiologists, pathologists and other cancer specialists. This multidisciplinary partnership results in improved patient care.

Like all CoC-accredited facilities, Northwest Community Healthcare maintains a cancer registry and contributes data to the National Cancer Data Base, a joint program of the CoC and American Cancer Society. This nationwide oncology outcomes database is the largest clinical disease registry in the world. Data on all types of cancer are tracked and analyzed through the NCDB and used to explore trends in cancer care. CoC-accredited cancer centers, in turn, have access to information derived from this type of data analysis, which is used to create national, regional and state benchmark reports. These reports help CoC facilities with their quality improvement efforts.

There are currently more than 1,500 CoC-accredited cancer programs in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. CoC-accredited facilities diagnose and/or treat more than 70 percent of all newly diagnosed cancer patients. When cancer patients choose to seek care locally at a CoC-accredited cancer center, they are gaining access to comprehensive, state-of-the-art cancer care close to home.